PS5 Pro is expected late 2024, with the PS6 expected 2028. If Microsoft is to try to keep pace, as someone who doesn’t have either console, it will be interesting to see if they also brand this as a mid-generation refresh or if they stick to their guns they’ve been touting for a while of being “beyond generations”.
A pro model is not needed.
It’s needed to justify price hikes as components became more expensive due to inflation.
The price already increased, and justified it with rising component prices, so why not do it again?
Because it’s an easier pill to swallow, given how unpopular that last hike was.
The price hike happened after they reduced the amount of metals used so production costs went down and after they dropped the weight so much that shipping costs also dropped. They just wanted more money after seeing how much the scalpers were getting.
2028 it is then.
I tried buying the PS5 when it released, and couldn’t get my hands on one for nearly a year. Then I saw the content lagging and decided not to buy the PS5. I still don’t see why I would want a PS5 today. I got a fairly decent PC, so that can carry me for another 5 years or soIf the content cadence for PS5 is not to your tastes, I don’t see it getting better in 5 years. Games the size that Sony is making don’t get made quickly.
It’s mainly because the titles are being released on pc anyway (with some delays)
This is the big thing. There’s been a few games that have released on PS5 that had me considering buying the console (Ratchet & Clank RA, Returnal, Final Fantasy 16) that have tempted me, but they’re all either already on PC or coming in the next 2 years. Why would I buy a console if everything on it is gonna get ported eventually anyways?
The funny thing is that the best way to get them released faster is to not buy a PS5 and wait patiently for the PC release to go on sale.
A reason I might buy a console used is because certain titles, like Nier Automata, were poorly ported to PC. I love that game, but the Steam version crashed a lot for me.
There’s a fan made patch that fixes the major problems of the port. I played it totally fine using that.
Without that fan patch, I wasn’t able to play at all. But further into the game, it started crashing every 10 - 20 minutes. Think the particular Radeon card I had at the time was poor compatibility. nVidia users might have had more luck.
It actually did end up getting a patch years later
I played before it though with I think the far mod and had no issues. Never bothered trying to play without the mod.
Yeah, I heard it fixed most of the issues. Haven’t tried it yet. I have since switched from an AMD to nVidia card so maybe it works now.
Obviously it varies from person to person but Sony exclusives would be the main reason most people want to be in the PlayStation ecosystem. As others have said even when those exclusives do eventually reach PC, the ports are usually lackluster at best and unplayable at worst. So why upgrade to the 5 if you have a 4? For me the difference in load times alone justified early adoption. Probably not everyone can justify the cost and hassle just for faster loading of their PS4 library, but as someone whose time is at a premium and who still tries to play a lot of games often, I have probably saved countless precious hours of time and therefore played far more of my gaming library in the same time frame just be being on the 5.
Lackluster at best isn’t really accurate, most of their ports have been more than functional and usually get performance patches. Alot of these issues are also poor optimization more than anything which means alot of issues can often be brute forced with stronger rigs so it adds value to upgrading whenever its time for that.
The issue is the consumer who is most likely to consider buying a console doesn’t want to have to worry about waiting months for a port and then another several months for performance to be fixed, nor do they want to pay for a very expensive gaming PC and then regular hardware upgrades to play new games. As I was saying to someone else, Sony isn’t really competing for PC gamers. They’re two different markets and Sony knows this which is why they do release a lot of their games to PC eventually. But for people who want to play Sony games when they are relatively new and active, either to experience the story with others and avoid eventual spoilers, or to play in an active online community that may not last, waiting for a functional PC release isn’t worth it, especially at the higher cost it brings to have a decent one compared to a console.
Cost to performance ebbs and flows with each console generation, and console generations are getting longer, or perhaps disappearing if Microsoft is to be believed. PC gaming’s market share has been steadily rising for over a decade now, to the point where PC versions of some games that used to be console-only releases now outsell their console counterparts. There are a lot of reasons we could guess as to why this is, but I don’t think they’re wholly two different markets, and I don’t think Sony thinks this either, regardless of what they said in court. They’re preparing to set up their own PC storefront, probably without anything that will make people want to use it besides exclusives, even though that’s failed for everyone else who tried it, but signs are pointing toward them preparing to do it.
Yeah, I don’t think it’s so much that Sony doesn’t see PC as a direct competitor, but that Microsoft is pushing them in a direction where now they feel they can’t afford to cut themselves off from future markets that might be much more relevant and less niche in the future. If Microsoft didn’t switch releasing Xbox exclusives when it came to PC I don’t see Sony bothering with the PC market. Feels like something they were more reluctantly dragged into as the market of gamers started changing.
Also, even with the rise in PC parts due to stuff like mining the demographic had changed too where kids are growing up watching streamers, wanting to stream, so lot of people they follow using PCs. Guys like Linus are pretty big youtubers too changing the accessibility of PCs from this obscure nerdy and complicated out of reach thing into something more people are wanting to try if their interest is piqued.
Even if Microsoft wasn’t bringing their games to PC for the longest time, there are other factors that would have pushed Sony in that direction. The games that they’re making are immensely expensive to make, and they can’t necessarily bank on console sales recouping that cost as guaranteed as they used to. And then there was also the supply shortages caused by the pandemic that prevented PS5s from being picked up by ready and willing customers.
I feel Sony exclusive console draw no longer holds a much weight as it used to for PC gamers. In the past I “knew” Sony games would never ever come to the PC, so it was to only way to play them so I got them. Now I just have to wait, and I never buy games at launch either and never bought consoles until the exclusive library could stand on its own without taking into account future releases so I ended up getting consoles mid Gen or end of life anyways. So being first mover on the console never mattered to me.
The thing is I don’t think Sony cares about peeling PC gamers away anymore for exactly the reasons you said; they just release most of their games to PC eventually anyway. But PC gamers and console gamers are not the same market. There are certainly people who play both, but I rarely play PC games anymore because my whole gaming setup is centered around the couch with family now. I simply don’t have time to also park myself in front of a PC and game that way as well, and as far as purpose built PCs that connect to a TV go, well, none of those bring the same features for the same cost the way the PS5 does. Pretty much the only PC gaming I do now is on Steam Deck and those games are chosen for playability on the go. So you’re not really comparing Sony exclusivity to PC at that point, you’re comparing it to Xbox. And between the two Sony wins on exclusives so far this generation.
My PC is a prebuilt I got for not that much a year and a half ago, and it plugs directly into my TV with an HDMI cable, the same as my consoles. It’s actually next to my TV, and I play with a wireless controller. You don’t need a special set up anymore for that, so long as your TV uses HDMI.
How does it’s performance compare to a PS5? Because at least where I live, I would have to spend about twice as much on a PC to get the same performance as a PS5.
I could not tell you because I don’t have a PS5 to compare it to. I can say it’s leagues better than my PS4.
I simply don’t have time to also park myself in front of a PC and game that way as well, and as far as purpose built PCs that connect to a TV go
I just got a fiber optic hdmi cable hooked up to the TV and use a controller if I want to play on the couch. Don’t really see a point as result for my case to get a console specifically just for console gaming.
I get it for people who aren’t going to have a gaming PC to begin with or PC is too far to connect to a TV, but otherwise don’t see the draw to picking up a PS5 anymore. Not offering me anything novel in terms of hardware since already got the couch experience. If it was capable of being a httpc then yeah that’d be neat, but otherwise find it a hard sell to spend money on something that is just for gaming which my PC already does.
For me I guess. PC is just a Xbox, Sony, and to some extent Nintendo all in one now. Just been nice side effect of digital purchases not being as fractured and then locked into console hardware anymore, since pc is something I’m going to keep using anyways and stuff like steam deck is more then sufficient to play them too as you mentioned. I guess just got tired of being locked proprietary hardware over the console generations and losing compatibility and also having to wait for years hoping for remasters to play games at better settings.
It’s ironic - I was a playstation gamer, but bought a gaming PC figuring I would mostly use it for xbox exclusives after they bought up all those companies before this console gen started. Then it was so impossible to get a PS5 where I live that I got so frustrated I’ve written off getting one and have started PC gaming exclusively. I’m so fed with Sony and their BS that when a friend asked if I would get a PS5 now that they’re somewhat available, I was like, “lol nope.”
Meanwhile, not a single thing I’d want to play has come out yet on xbox, which was the whole reason I got a PC to begin with.
We are nearing something of a plateau with conventional gaming specs. With things like unreal’s nanite, and something like apple vision making resolution and screen size basically arbitrary, we’ll have consumer computational resources to run games of any level of graphical complexity. Remaining bottlenecks would be dynamic simulation and storage capacity.
Am I the only one still with a ps3? I bought enough games and Blu rays and pretty much have not bought much since then. If they are still re-releasing things that came out on ps1 when I was a kid then if I just keep my old stuff I’ll have half of the ps6 releases on ps3 lol
Nope, I still have mine and still playing it and the PS4. Finding games I didn’t get a chance to yet on either console is still keeping me busy and entertained.
